


Dreams May Come

by Kate_Shepard



Series: Banal Nadas [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23777374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: Solas has avoided Lavellan's dreams, wishing to make a clean break. But when temptation becomes too much and he risks a glimpse of her, he sees something that could change everything.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Banal Nadas [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1720828
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Dreams May Come

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot has been in my head for forever now, so I decided to finally write it down. My first foray into Solavellan hell. Go easy, lol.

Solas lay under a sky devoid of the green light of the Fade. A rock dug into his hip and something small brushed against his shoulder, but they were minor inconveniences in the face of his disquiet. Tonight, even the spirits could not bring him comfort. Tonight, he would be easy prey for any desire demon which might happen by, for his willpower was slowly crumbling. Tonight, he was…lonely. 

It wasn’t a sentiment with which he was terribly familiar. He liked solitude and through his journeys in the Fade, he was rarely alone unless he wished to be anyway. He didn’t lack for companionship even since leaving the Inquisition behind. So why, then, did he ache? Why did his legs insist that he should be running rather than trying—and failing, to his immense frustration—to sleep? Why was the crawling of his skin only in part due to the whisper of grass against his flesh?

If he still lied to himself, he refused to acknowledge it, so he was forced to admit that there was no real mystery here. He missed _her_. For a heartbeat, when this feeling had come upon him, he’d needed only to brush his lips over hers in the dark and she would fill his night with so much joy that it almost made this terrible new reality worthwhile. Almost. 

He’d resisted the urge to walk in her dreams. A clean break would be kindest. He never should have succumbed to the temptation that was Fen’an Lavellan. Even her name was a caution he’d ignored. Fen’an. Wolf heart. And she’d come to possess his as easily as if she’d been created for no other purpose. 

He was under no illusion that he no longer held claim to hers. He hadn’t meant to break it, but like a clumsy child with a priceless work of art, he’d recognized the value of what he had in his hands only after it was too late and the pieces lay on the floor at his feet. She hated him now, he was certain. Any dream of hers he appeared in would only become a nightmare.

He told himself all of the reasons he should leave her alone and then reiterated them again, but his eyes refused to close and the Fade remained locked to him until he turned his focus to her. She came to him as easily as she always did. He’d never had to search for her here. He could find and bring her to him even in her waking hours. 

She was alone in her bedroom at Skyhold. The elaborate glass doors she kept flung open on all but the worst days were shut tight against darkness pressed against their brilliant panes. A fire crackled in the hearth. 

Ebony hair tumbled over her shoulder in a loose braid that almost dipped into the water in the basin she stood over. She’d traded those horrendous pajamas for a robe made from Dales loden wool when he’d begun spending his evenings in her quarters, and it draped her now. Between the hydrangea blue of the robe and the warmth of the fire, her skin should glow, but it was pale and wan, further proof of the damage he’d done. He should leave. Now, before she noticed his presence. 

Her fingers traced her cheeks where that detestable blood writing was once carved into her skin, but rather than happiness at being freed from them, she could barely meet her reflection in the water. With a grunt of frustration, she slapped her hand through it, spraying water in golden orbs across the room and disturbing the surface. He didn’t understand. Did she regret letting him take them? 

Realization settled onto his shoulders and drove them down. Of course she did. What were marks of ownership to his eyes were symbols of belonging to her. He hadn’t done enough to explain to her what they meant to him nor what he’d done for her. He’d seen enough of the Dalish to know that her people had reclaimed them and turned them into something different. He simply hadn’t taken that into consideration, unable to look at her and see anything but the marks of a thousand slaves. He hadn’t considered what others would interpret when they looked at her, what she herself would see. Clanless. Outcast. Alone. And he’d abandoned her to it. Yet another way in which his efforts to improve lives did nothing but worsen them. He’d failed. Again.

She turned and eyes the color of the sky her castle held up passed over him for an instant before locking onto him. Misery and fear had drawn tight, but joy drove them out, lighting her face before the shutters fell and she stopped mid-flight toward him. Her fluttering feet planted as solidly in the carpet near the foot of the bed they’d shared for months as the castle’s roots themselves were in the mountain. Her outstretched arms crossed over her chest above a gently-rounded belly.

Solas’ world stopped.

“Vhenan,” he breathed. “You are…”

No. It couldn’t be. How was it even possible? He was what he was, and she was mortal. To his knowledge, he had never fathered a child. Was there another? No. Fen’an was nothing if not loyal. 

“With child, yes,” she said, hesitation belying the ice in her voice. “Yours, if you need the confirmation. Where have you been, Solas? Why did you leave?”

Shaking his head, he took a step back. This couldn’t be. The war between love and duty was already nigh on impossible. He had a responsibility. He had a mission. He couldn’t be swayed. He had to fix what he’d broken. He’d left because he knew that if he stayed, he would not have the strength to do what needed to be done. If he hadn’t gotten away from her, he would have done the selfish thing and no matter that this world was untenable and somehow even worse than what came before. 

How was he supposed to let her die now? He’d already had to separate himself from the idea. Now, it wasn’t just her. There was a child. _Their_ child. It shouldn’t matter. He’d been prepared to sacrifice millions of other people’s children for the greater good. How could he do any less with his own? 

How could he be so foolish, so reckless, so _stupid_?! He must have known it was a possibility. He’d resisted her attempts at seduction even as he’d ached for her. He’d turned away again and again, always telling himself that he could control himself. He could taste without feasting. He could wade without drowning. He could touch and not take. Each time, it took more willpower to pull away, and yet he returned like a moth to flame until her heat captured him and they’d burned together. Even then, he had not stopped. He’d told himself that it was only for a short while, that she would forgive him, that he could walk away and not look back. 

Gods, how he lied to himself.

He could carry on with his plan and save his people or he could save his child and the woman who held his heart. She and the babe couldn’t survive what he had planned. His hand wrapped around the jaw bone he never removed. The remnants of teeth and bone cut into his palm and fingers. Fen’Harel was who he was, who he’d been for centuries. 

But before he became the Dread Wolf, he’d been Solas. The wolf and the elf warred inside him. Fen’an watched him with wary, sorrowful eyes.

“Ir abelas, vhenan,” he whispered, tightening his hand. The cord snapped. The bone clattered onto the floor. _Elvhen, forgive me._ “I am coming home.”


End file.
